Elke, or the collector... The drugs, the mattress, gone. Good riddance! But what about your clothes? The little room is full of them! What to do with these columns of shoeboxes, hatboxes and seven racks, two of which collapsed under the weight? These things touched you, covered you, prolonged your movements your movements, are impregnated with your Délire de roses. I can see you in them, and I suffer in those hollows! Poor brain of inevitable afterglow. Do you want me to end up as von Stroheim in the Boulevard des chiffons? I'll make others wear them, I'll hate them for not being able to put on your glass boots, for not being you! And they'll hate me and play me. Stewart, in Vertigo, stuck on the museum side, behind the spiral bun. What should I do, Elke? Pack it all in suitcases and take it to the poor? Sell it on the Internet? Ship it to your son in Berlin, to be stored in the dust of vintage stores, among old ladies' dresses and Birkenstock mules? Shame on me! These are expensive things, but if you want to know what to do with them, tell me how much they meant to you! I moved them from Basel to Paris by the truckload without you telling me. You even accepted my grumblings - there were so many of them, under plastic. All I could see was your habit of never throwing anything away. This time, I open. Direct my hand and explain? Box after box, it's an enchantment! Hats or sculptures? Clothes, or costumes? And these fabrics I can't even name, these rich embroideries that spread like tapestries! A treasure? Our medical expenses made you weep but you never thought of dipping into it. A wardrobe? You only used a tiny fraction of it. A museum? That no one, not even me, could visit? Casoar hats, Hermès stirrup hats, Marc Jacobs wide-brimmed hats lined with purplish silk, Miyake pleated hats, pink, gold and chiffon straws, canotiers, canaille berets, high-buttoned opera gloves, blouses like collages, skirts with trains, dresses with lacings, basques, hoops, embroidered linings, hand-painted lapels, Yamamoto cuts and Dior coats like applause, everything is exquisitely tasteful and intact, sometimes never worn! Your foreign domain. Your secret! In the image of what, Elke? The very first look? Your first time? Because it's all about love and fantasy. The purest piece you owe to seamstresses' hands, which, in the boutique, says the whole package, which is the ultra of the big brand for this season, you spot with your geometric precision, you claim it personally, a jeweler's confidence, you seize it in a luxury salon. The designer, without even knowing you has dreamed of you and found you. And you buy it, you madwoman! Wir werden Kartoffeln essen! We'll eat potatoes! Each time, Elke or the desired one, imaginary flight beyond matter until the next contact, and excess! This headdress topped with a calamus, this other one in black satin as if worn by a Chinese scholar, this falsely disordered muslin, you multiply your poses between the mirrors, demanding to be photographed or filmed (I've found traces of this). enchant saleswomen and customers, stun husbands, for you are breathtakingly beautiful. Metamorphic, all possible, the Sans-souci, the little Lord Fauntleroy, the punk, the Gavroche, the Countess of Hong Kong or Longchamp, the putassive bitch, the kawaii schoolgirl, the Hedren, the Yellow Submarine, my Elke, my love, I miss you. miss you, the Dior shoe-woman, the Miyake kite, all of them! An elegant woman with smiling red lips, offering herself to the eyes and dreams of all. If she wasn't kind, she'd be frightening because she was an icon! Noli me tangere! No one must touch me! A destiny prey to the ideal? A destiny as an icon of desire. Elke, daughter of an unknown father, granddaughter of an unknown grandfather, wars, the Wall, telling me, I've lacked a guide. I'm told, this is the unfathomable woman you needed, you who can't live without searching. Were you waiting until I was alone to let me discover your accessories and the possible extent of your game? Was it sickness that made you give it up, or love that, at last with me, made you love me raw? Of Elke or the collector, this collection remains, Apotheosis. Showcases in Moritzburg Castle, where the dresses of Augustus' princesses hang. The figure of Elke acquires its vanishing line, from the living, hidden source of her desire, which I have only approached and can never defile. Elke (excerpt), novel by Paul J. Memmi, forthcoming.